Nuggets F Kenneth Faried on trade rumors: “No comment”

For the second time since the start of the season, Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried has had his name connected to trade rumors, a situation that led to the organization clearing the air with Faried’s representatives – letting them know there were no trade talks – and the player himself being forced to block everything out.

“No comment,” Faried said. “No comment on all of that. I just play basketball and do my job, and that’s it.”

Faried’s name was connected to a rumored trade for New York Knicks guard Iman Shumpert. But the Nuggets and Knicks were not, in fact, embroiled in trade negotiations.

Nuggets coach Brian Shaw expected to talk with Faried about it all prior to Wednesday night’s game against the Lakers. The coach is no stranger to trade talk and being traded himself. Shaw was traded four times in his career.

Shaw called the Faried-to-New York trade rumor “exactly what it is; it’s a rumor.”

“Dealing with someone like him, it’s part of the game,” Shaw said. “Every player, from the greatest player in the game to the last player in the game has had to deal with it at some point. I was a guy that was traded four times. Every year when it got to trade deadline, my name was a part of it. You look at it as part of you personally is like ‘Is this team shopping me? They don’t want me anymore?’ On the other end of it is a team that possibly wants you. I’m not saying that that’s the case in this case. But it’s a part of the game.

“It’s always going to come up. Obviously it means that people view you as an asset. But you just have to, every single day you come in, you only can control what you’re doing right here and right now. You have a game, play to the best of your ability. All that stuff is out of our control anyway. I found out, the first time I got traded, I found out via voice mail on my answering machine. So, I’m looking for him to have a conversation just to let him know to try to block that out. As easy as it is to say, it’s not always that easy to do. Just block it out and do what you normally do.”

Faried ‘on the block’ rumors first started at the beginning of the season. Asked whether he was worried about the impact of it all on his young star, Shaw nodded.

“A little bit,” he said. “He’s young, and I think he’s impressionable. As a player, sometimes you take it personal and it can affect you. I haven’t been around him enough to know how mentally tough he is to deal with something like this, or when it’s happened before. But any kind of assistance I can give him to calm him down, I want to be there to do that for him.”